Is Maxtor severing ties with Cyberstar?

Is Maxtor planning to sever its distribution alliance with Cyberstar? Yes, says a company official, though noting that the dotted line in the termination agreement has not been signed upon.

However, Anil Pruthi of Cyberstar Infocom denies reports that Maxtor and Cyberstar are parting ways. He says, “We will be distributing Maxtor at least for the next two years.”

The vendor recently brought in Quantus Infoways as its fifth distributor, in addition to Cyberstar Infocom, Ingram Micro, eSys and Almasa. Quantus, the Indian counterpart of Transtek, a Singapore-based distributor, will be the vendor's fifth distributor.

According to sources, the reason Maxtor has decided to take this step is because Cyberstar has also started distributing Hitachi's HDDs, which directly compete with Maxtor's products. But Anil points out that all distributors sell competing brands and Cyberstar is no exception.

An official in the vendor company also states that the distributor is not focusing as strongly on Maxtor sales, as it was in the past. Reaffirming this Dhyanesh Thakkar of Brainwave Systems, a reseller who sells Maxtor and other HDD brands, states that the stock register that he gets from Cyberstar features Maxtor products which are more than two months old.

Incidentally, partners want Maxtor to beef up its support network in the country. At the moment, the vendor has set up a call center to address product-related queries and troubleshooting. “But, the system is not well automated and often, we have to call them up several times, before our problem gets resolved,” says
Dhyanesh.

However, Maxtor claims that its service setup is highly efficient and buyers often get over the counter replacement or get the drives shipped to them in faraway locations.

VINITA BHATIA

MUMBAI

CI NEWS BUREAU